The book The Whole-Brain Child by Daniel J. Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson describes how the brain grows, how it functions, and how to interact with and support children as they start recognizing, managing, and learning through their emotions. It helps to get a better grasp of what kids face on the inside because of the book’s realistic examples and teachings. It demonstrates how to communicate with them, how to make them feel comfortable, and how to become skilled at imparting the most efficient lessons possible.
There are some main points that can be emphasized in the book. Parents should communicate with their children so that they feel heard and understood. It is not the right time to try to instruct or punish your children when they are struggling. When a child’s brain has re-adjusted to a more coherent condition, it’s time to redirect and teach the lesson. Parents must educate their children to use storytelling to express their emotions. This enables children to process their feelings in a more healthy and effective manner. It is necessary to teach them to analyze how and why they feel certain things.
Regarding the small children, the book tells that most of them have their right hemisphere dominant and are not yet adapted to use logic and verbal communication to express emotions. In such cases, children might experience strong feelings, and when they are impossible to interpret or understand, they can become overwhelming for kids. Helping children improve their logical abilities to handle their feelings is possible by teaching them to categorize and sort events by their order and get into the details of what happened. The main instrument for an adult to help a small child is the narrative. This is one of the main tools that can be adopted in supporting children’s development. Whereas they are not yet fully developed in their logical skills, it is hard for them to structure thoughts in their mind. The assistance provided by adults is crucial, as eventually, such help will become self-conducted. This will allow the child to better categorize and reflect on their own thoughts in the future, which will result in improved self-understanding and analysis skills.
Adolescents are another age group discussed in the book, and there are some recommendations on helping them develop while going through that period. As children approach the teen years, they might become more distant and hesitant in talking about their experiences. When it is related to painful emotions and thoughts, this can be very difficult for an adolescent to go through these things on their own. It is necessary to tell them about the positive effects of telling the stories that they are going through, as it allows them to better analyze difficult situations and gain control over the emotions they are causing. Although, it is not possible without being careful and tender while approaching an adolescent with these suggestions, as due to their fragileness in this period, they can be overdefensive.
In conclusion, the book provides many examples of helping kids develop in different periods of their growth. This help is primarily conducted by their parents, as they lead their children to adult life. It seems that the most important things described in the book are related to emotion control. For small children, there are recommendations related to helping children regulate their emotions through the narrative and through talking with them about their experiences. On the other hand, in adolescence, it is necessary to change positions. An adolescent should talk through their experiences, especially the painful ones, to better analyze them and gain more control over their negative feelings.
References
Siegel, D. J. & Bryson T.P (2011). The Whole-Brain Child. Delacorte Press.